I don’t agree with that, but I can’t put my finger on why, exactly…maybe because, if you can learn the material without showing up, you’re wasting the professor’s time and your (and the school’s) money (and denying someone else the opportunity to take that course if it’s a popular course), since you could have just as easily learned it without taking the course. Or maybe because, if it’s a course with student-to-student interaction (which most are), you’re hurting the other students, since you obviously know what you’re doing, but you aren’t there to help the others like you’re supposed to. Or maybe because you made an implicit promise to show up when you signed up to the course, and now you’re breaking it. Yet none of those refute your (Frylock’s) preemptive counterargument.
Since we’re talking about colleges, the student isn’t wasting the school’s money–the student paid for the class. The student’s not wasting the professor’s time because by not showing up the student’s not taking up any of the professor’s time at all. It’s not material that you’re taking a spot that could have been taken by someone else, since you’re not there just to learn but also to receive certification that you have learned.
I’m not aware of any implicit promise to show up. By signing up for a course, you agree to be assessed by the means stated in the syllabus. That’s the only promise I’m aware of that one is making by signing up for the course.
As for not being there to help others, this may have some merit as a reason to require attendance, depending on the course. For certain courses taught using certain methods, I can see requiring attendance of a certain level in order to receive a grade in the course, if student attendance in that course tends to help not only that student but other students in the course as well. I still would prefer not to have attendance affect the grade, but rather, have attendance affect whether there is a grade at all.
Honestly, any way - literally any way - you implement the attendance policy will be fair as long as
it’s clearly spelled out in the syllabus
it’s implemented consistently to all students
You want to take a point away for each attendance? You want to assign it as 10% of the grade? You want to assign it as .01% of the grade? You want to give a bonus for perfect attendance? Anything, anything at all is fair as long as you follow those two rules above.
Let the students decide for themselves how important attendance is to them and let the math work its magic on its own. It will all work itself out.
The university I graduated from has an attendance policy. You must attend at least 75% of your classes or you will receive an F in that particular class. So we all knew that for MWF classes we could miss something like 12 classes and on T-Th classes we could miss something like 7 classes. Professors were required (or had TA’s) take attendance in classes.
I’m not sure that subtracting a point for a missed attendance is any different than making it part of the grade. It seems mathematically equivalent to me, although I haven’t exactly written it out yet. I’ll get back to you on that.
Here’s an example, given Sally’s test scores of 100% and attendance at 5/10 classes.
Attendance is 10% of the grade and tests are 90%: Grade= .9t + .1a
t= 100%
A = .5
Grade = .91 + .1.5 = 95%
Attendance is -1 for a missed class, or +1 for each class attended (same thing):
Grade = T - .01A
Grade = 100% - .015 = 95%
This works no matter how many classes you say she missed/attended. If it’s 7 of 10, then she gets a 97% no matter how you calculate it. If she only goes to 2 classes out of 10, then she gets a 92% both ways. What if there are more/less than 20 classes? That’s the equivalent of making it more/less than 10% of the grade, or making it less/more (note the inversion) than 1 point (perhaps a fraction of a point or several points).
That is, if there are 20 classes, that’s the equivalent of saying “You gain/lose half a percentage point per missed class” or saying “Attendance counts for 20% of your grade”.
My major beef with your point of view, Frylock, is that you’re biased towards testing. I believe that even if a student doesn’t do well on tests, they most assuredly picked up something through osmosis while they sat there in class. They may not know who wrote “No man is an island”, which was question #3 in test 2, but they might accidentally memorize something about a bell tolling and be able to quote it in a business meeting 3 years later. Sure, it wasn’t on the test, but the student learned something. You can study for a test, or you can attend class. You can do both or neither, as well. But both are perfectly valid ways to show that you mastered a course. All you have to figure out is how to weight those two things. Surely they’re not equivalent. So how much more do tests count vs. attendance? Maybe 19:1? Then you make attendance be 5% of the grade.
You say that attendance doesn’t reflect course mastery? I disagree.
I’d also go so far as to say besides just “knowledge”, college is to train you for being a responsible working adult. That includes just showing up and doing shit you think is pointless.
If I ran Pudunk U, I’d know I’d be more happy if our graduates at least had a reputation for showing up for work rather than being a bunch of contrarian hippies who complain that “I get the work done man, don’t bring me down with your rigid schedules and pointless rules”.
It looks like I have a fundamental philosophical disagreement with you and Chessic then. I simply reject this view. The function of a college course (at least in the Humanities) isn’t to train you for being a responsible working adult. It’s to give you the opportunity to learn about whatever it is the course is about.
You can learn to be a responsible working adult by getting a job and habituating yourself as necessary.
In some of the classes I teach, there is no grade for “attendance” or “participation,” but there are quizzes and other activities (sometimes for a regular grade, sometimes for nominal extra credit) that cannot be made up if a student is absent.
In other classes, I do devote a certain portion (around 15%) of the course grade to “class participation.” If you’re absent, you get zero class participation points for that day; but you can also lose points for arriving late, leaving early, not being involved in class discussions, doing poorly on quizzes and other in-class work, etc. And I give a few extra credit assignments students can do to make up for lost class participation points, mainly for the benefit of motivated, hardworking students who miss class through no fault of their own.
Yikes indeed. If a student is horrendously, contagiously sick, I want them to miss class.
Where A is the average of all assignments other than attendance, where T is the number of times attended (out of ten possible days of attendance), and assuming there are nine non-attendance assignments, and assuming attendance is worth ten percent of the course grade, the two systems assign grades as follows:
S1: (9A + 10T)/10
S2: 9A/9 - (10 - T)
S1 simply treats attendance as a tenth assignment, weighted equally with the other nine.
S2 subtracts up to ten points from a course grade calculated by averaging the nine non-attendance assignments.
The two systems are not equivalent. For example, if A = 70 and T = 8 then S1 gives a grade of 71 and S2 gives a grade of 68.
This is a particular case where the two assign the same grade. In fact, if the test average is 100, then the course average will be the same for all attendance levels. But for other test averages, the two systems do not give the same results.
I’m biased towards basing assessment scores on acts of assessment? Call me guilty!
I agree they probably did. And I’m happy about that. But how do I incorporate this fact into the grade reliably and accurately?
My personal impression–and happiness at the prospect–that even those failing my the tests have probably picked up a little something along the way is nothing to base an assessment on.
A well designed test demonstrates conclusively that a student has mastered something. A record of attendance suggests possibly the student may have picked up something or other. I’d rather have course grades that should be interpreted as “this student has mastered something” than ones that should be interpreted as “this student may possibly have picked up something or other.” Which course grade would you rather be in a position to have to interpret?
It demonstrably doesn’t. A student who learns nothing can have perfect attendance, and a student who learns everything can fail completely to attend. Meanwhile–assuming a well designed test! it’d be well nigh impossible for a student who has learned nothing to pass or a student who has learned everything to fail.
I agree with that, Frylock. I’d much rather give a driver’s license to someone who’s passed a driving test, even if they haven’t attended any driver’s education classes, than to someone who’s attended hundreds of hours of driver’s education classes but failed the test.
So, they go to college to learn useful humanities stuff.
Then, I guess they get a first big/real job after college to learn what the real world is like. This is where they learn the grind for the first time.
Then, after that, they get the real job.
I am sure the employers just love all the stuff THEY now have to teach.
I didnt say attendance was the only or even primary reason for college and college classes. But, IMO, unless you can make the argument that overall statistically speaking that accounting for attendance actually HURTS the primary mission of imparting knowledge then IMO you are wasting an opportunity to ALSO teach something else of importance (even if it is minor) component).
I mean, do you count off for poor spelling or grammar? Improperly formated papers? Late papers? Ever tell students to quite disrupting class with rude behavior? And a host of other things that when push comes to shove arent technically the “knowledge” you are trying to impart? I mean they could learn ALL that OTHER stuff somewhere else too right?
Why should I care what these future employers love or don’t love to do?
Of course you didn’. You said it’s a reason. When I say I reject the view, what I mean is I think it (learning basic do-the-dumb-shit-I-gotta-do skills etc) is no part at all of the proper function of a college course (at least in the Humanities).
If a college functions to impart knowledge, then graduation should be based only on imparted knowledge.
Graduation is based on course grades.
Adding attendance to a course grade makes the course grade a less reliable assessment of imparted knowledge.
QED.
To the extent that it interferes with their communication of the knowledge I’m trying to help them develop, I include comments about spelling and grammar in my feedback.
Not for any of the courses I’ve taught so far.
Yes, but I feel really bad about it and am constantly casting about for another way–because this bothers me for many of the same reasons attendance grades bother me. (By the way–I should be clear that neither actually bothers me that much. I’m talking about it here so much because—well, it’s the topic of the thread, idn’t?)
Of course, but in doing so as a teacher I’m not functioning to teach the rude student anything but rather to ensure a classroom environment conducive for learning in general.
